John Waters once said, “Get more out of life. See a fucked-up movie.”
I’ve written about the purity of exploitation films many times. They promise a certain kind of entertainment—usually mindless—and they either deliver or they don’t. Here’s one that delivers, but once it crosses the line, it doesn’t stop. Early on, a defenseless old man gets drawn between a car and a tree in gruesome fashion. Soon after, a terrified child get shot in the back. Not that any of it looks real, mind you, but it’s still not for the faint of heart.
Fortress of Amerikkka has a lot in common with Surf Nazis Must Die. They both have sleazy titles, they both contain unbridled cheese, and they were both distributed by Troma Entertainment (of course). Surf Nazis Must Die is just a little more fun; any revenge film in which the hero is a motorcycle-driving black mama is clearly better than one in which a white actor (Gene LeBrock) plays a Native American named John Whitecloud.
Whitecloud has just been released from prison. The first thing he does is stock up on weapons and ammunition at the local gun store. There he has a run-in with the dirty cop who killed his brother and put him away in the first place. The cop tells Whitecloud he better watch his back, a scene every movie like this must include. Meanwhile, there’s a militia performing training exercises in the surrounding woods. The villain, who reminds me of Donald Trump making Amerikkka great again, commands his mindless followers to kill anyone who stumbles upon the location of their camp, which seems to be damn near everyone but the cops.
These are two very different plots which run parallel until, suddenly, they don’t. And here’s where the confusion comes into play: Why is America spelled with a triple-K? It leads you to believe the militia has ties with the Klan, yet they’re a racially inclusive and female friendly group, as far as I can tell. Troma films have been known for being as subtle as a cannonball, so I’m not sure what the social commentary is here, if any. I just can’t bring myself to believe the guy who directed two Class of Nuke’Em High sequels had anything more important to say than “violence and boobies, yay!”
The “that’s so wrong” factor of this movie is simply stunning. Get a bunch of drunk friends together and you’ll probably have a blast. It’s one of the wildest Troma films that wasn’t produced in-house.
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